Kiss me once
Then kiss me twice
Then kiss me once again
It’s been a long, long time …
It had certainly been a long time but the world was trying to get back to normal. The boys and girls were coming home to take up life again, if only they could remember how. They were in for a lot of surprises.
Haven’t felt like this, my dear
Since can’t remember when
It’s been a long, long time …
The two men had emerged from the dark green shadows of a couple of mournful, dipping weeping willows and were trapped in the bright sunshine again.
I recognized them.
My father was still in uniform but it wouldn’t be much longer now before he was back in civvies, back in the movie business. He’d had a good war, as people said. He’d finished out the war, after making a much-praised documentary about the fighting in the hedgerows, serving on the military intelligence staff of the Allied Command in Europe. I hadn’t known he was back stateside but there he was, looking fit as a fiddle.
Terry Leary was with him, wearing a seersucker jacket and gray slacks and penny loafers.
“Lew,” my father said.
“Dad.” I stood up and hugged him tight.
“Terry said you’d be here. We looked everywhere else so he said this had to be the place. You all right, Lew?”
“Fine,” I said. “I’m just fine.”
We all three sat down on the bench.
“She’s here, then?” my father said.
“In a manner of speaking, I guess she is. Mainly she’s up here.” I tapped my temple.
“I’m sorry about her, son. Sorry about the whole damn thing, sorriest about her. She was one beautiful kid.”
“Well, she got a raw deal,” I said.
“Right.” He nodded. “I know what you mean. Can’t get her out of your mind, I suppose.”
“Never even tried,” I said. “Just one of those things.”
“But it’s been a long time, Lew,” he said softly, looking at the marker.
I smiled at my father. He was the last person I really loved. Oh, I loved Terry, too, but that was different. Loving Terry was a complicated proposition. Loving my father was like loving Karin and Cindy. It was simple. Like the love I’d feel if I ever fathered a child.
Terry was smoking one of the Havanas, legs stretched out, eyes closed, face to the sun.
“It’s been a long, long time,” I said.
We sat quietly, three chaps in a graveyard taking the sun. Thinking about a dead lady or two.
Finally Terry said, “Better get to it, Paul.”
“I suppose so,” he said.
“Get to what?” I felt a chill along the base of my spine, up my back, palpable tension like I hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Well, I’m glad you’re sitting down, Lew. I’ve got some pretty surprising news—”
He was pausing when Terry took the cigar out of his mouth, said, “Come on, Paul, get to it.”
“Well. Yes, there’s this news. I’ve just flown back from Germany. I was working on the art collection team, running all over hell’s half acre interviewing people, checking out guys in internment camps, looking for paintings and vases and crosses and—well, you get the idea … damnedest thing you’ve ever seen, really …”
“Come on, Dad,” I said.
“Well, we turned up all sorts of people and—oh, hell, I’m doing this so badly. Here’s the point … ah, what I’m trying to say is this … Karin’s coming home, Lew.”
He brushed a fly away from his face and glanced heavenward, hopefully, impatiently.
“Karin,” I said.
“We found Karin, Lew. She’s alive and she’s coming back.”
A lot of things should have crossed my mind but nothing really did. He might as well have told me that they’d just discovered that the world is flat. Think about it. Somebody you hadn’t seen in almost six years, your wife, someone you’d thought was dead ever since the bombing of Cologne in ’42, someone was coming back. I didn’t quite get it. I had to adjust everything within myself and it was a disconcerting job.
“Karin …” I blinked at my father, looked at Terry. “Karin’s all right?”
“Oh, she’s had some tough times. You can’t imagine how beat-up that country is … but you know Karin, she’s okay.”
“Jesus, it’s been a long time,” I said. “When can I see her?”
“Soon. She’ll be back soon. A few days.”
I tried to swallow, discovered I couldn’t.
“There’s one thing, though,” my father said. “One thing I’ve got to tell you …”
“You said she’s all right—”
“She is, she is. But she’s not coming home alone, that’s the thing.”
“Her father? He survived, too? But the paper said—”
“No, not her father. That’s what I’m trying so clumsily to tell you, son.”
“I don’t get it. Who’s coming back with my wife?”
My poor father sighed.
“Her husband. Karin’s bringing back her husband.”
After a silence that paralyzed us all, Terry said, “As Bennie used to say, it’s an imperfect world, Lew.”
Terry was smiling. He stood up.
“Come on, amigo. You need a drink.”
He went off whistling.
Kiss me once then kiss me twice then
Kiss me once again
It’s been a long, long time …
My father and I followed him through the glories of the August sunshine.
Something funny was going on.
But that’s another story.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1986 by Thomas Maxwell
“The Nearness of You” by Ned Washington and Hoagy Carmichael. Copyright © 1937 and 1940 by Famous Music Corporation. Copyright renewed 1964 and 1967 by Famous Music Corporation. “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” by Cole Porter. Copyright © 1942 by Chappell & Co., Inc. Copyright renewed. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. “It’s Been A Long, Long Time” by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. © 1945 Morley Music Co. © Renewed 1973 Morley Music Co. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.
cover design by Michel Vrana
978-1-4532-6615-1
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Kiss Me Once Page 32
